Look at it like this: We're all going to die. When you were born, you began the dying process. That's right, the living process is actually the dying process. As soon as you start living, you start dying. Therefore, life is actually death in a very clever disguise. But since you're here, the best thing you can do is live in the moment. Past regrets do not serve you in any way.
Perhaps you've heard this zen koan before.
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A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, with the tiger hot on his tail. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge of the cliff. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down, and there, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one black and one white, little by little, started to gnaw away at the vine. The man noticed a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other hand. How sweet it tasted.
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Of course, the lesson to be learned from this koan is obvious. Never, EVER cross an open field without a large caliber rifle, especially in tiger country.
But seriously, the tiger above represents birth--from which you cannot return. The tiger below represents death--from which there is no escape. The vine represents our physical life force from which we hang between birth and death.
The mice represented time, gnawing away at the life force, making our appointment with the tiger below an inevitable conclusion; the fact that they were black and white points to the ever-present duality--black-white, up-down, left-right, this-that, happy-sad, and hence, life-death; can't have one without the other.
The strawberry represents any and every thing that is in front of us in the now. With nothing to look back at and nothing to look forward to, the only thing that makes sense is to enjoy the strawberry in front of us; there really is nothing else--only the moment. Following that line of thought, I started seeing other humans as strawberries--some ripe; some not; some having gotten not enough sun, etc.
And remember that expectation is the source of all woe; and sometimes not because we don't get what we expect, but because we DO get what we expect.